A Fórmula de Deus

I've just finished reading another of my presents from last Christmas - only 3 more to go!

Following on from O Codex 632, José Rodrigues dos Santos sends Tomás Noronha off to Tehran and Lhasa this time, in search of the answer to "God's Formula", written by Albert Einstein as his proof of God's existence.

Unfortunately, this novel doesn't work for me as well as Codex 632, partly because I find the proof rather self-fulfilling and partly because, having a reasonable knowledge of physics, I got tired of the repetition of theoretical explanations: first one of the characters explains the theory to Tomás, then he goes off and confirms his understanding with another. I could have got as much out of a book 100 pages shorter, but I'm sure many readers wouldn't.

Not a book that I will take time to re-read, but as JRS and his team produce books faster than I have time to read them, I expect I'll be a fan for some time yet.

Skills for the Future

I have posted before about the mismatch between graduates and the skills that their employers need. So I was rather pleased that learned research from Accenture backs up my comments, showing that countries with high R&D spending and investment on training in science and technology makes countries more competitive.

This was presented to students and teaching staff at my post-graduate course award ceremony last night. I'm glad to have got through that experience with a rather better grade than my original degree. Don't know if I'll be going back for the Masters though. Enough of hard (academic) work for now.

CD of the Month (7)

J.S. Bach Violin Concertos / Gidon Kremer / Academy of St. Martin in the Fields (1983)

This CD of the Bach Violin Concertos was one of my early acquisitions back in 1984, when CDs were a novelty. It reflects the "best practice" of the time, which didn't run to period instruments, more to chamber orchestras of modern instruments, such as the Academy of St Martin in the Fields. Nowadays they don't do things that way, but I think this recording is quite acceptable.

My only gripe is having Gidon Kremer playing both violin solos on the Double Concerto for two violins - they tend to merge into each other rather than standing out as two separate virtuosi, as you might expect.

Anyway, it's a long standing favourite of mine.

Political Theatre

Tuesday's "debate" on the 2008 State budget was a fine piece of theatre. José Sócrates did a fine job of making a lot of noise about very little. Santana Lopes embarrassed himself with a poor reply. Jerónimo de Sousa, Paulo Portas and Francisco Louçã presented their pre-prepared insults in a predictable fashion, which is to say that the first was boring and the others clever.

In fact, I thought PP's reference to "Canal Memória" and FL's request for a refund on his ticket to the show were rather good. Shame that old Santana Lopes couldn't find anything inspired to say.

And so the democracy show rolls on with the Government coming out unscathed, as usual. Yawn...

False Friends

For those of you who have never learned a foreign language, false friends are those words that two languages have in common, but do not have the same meaning in each language. There are many of these, leading to confusion and embarrassment. For English/Portuguese there is a big list of them here.

After 17 years I Portugal, I was caught out by one this week: Commitment is simultaneously empenho (adjective) and compromisso (noun). I referred to my young, ambitious colleagues as comprometidos. Oops. Everybody understood that I meant committed, but it came out as compromised! Actually, I have got compromised colleagues, but they are not the ones I was referring to...

Back to school I guess.

Journalists' Rights Day

Apparently today is Journalists' Rights Day. Now I'm all for "rights" in general, but this is a profession that, in my limited experience, doesn't make good use of the rights that they have.

Take UK journalism. The best way to sell newspapers, apparently, is to make up scandals. Any journalist who fabricates a story just to create sensation, or sets a trap for a celebrity, loses his entitlement to any rights.

Then we have the blatently biased reporters, both in the UK and in Portugal. They record interviews when they have already defined their personal objectives for the resulting article. That's hardly the best way to ensure that their rights are respected.

As for the journalists who write and present articles that they have no technical competence for..... Need I continue?

Admittedly, journalists rights are threatened in many countries, even in Portugal from time to time (particularly in Madeira), but perhaps the journalists should reflect more on the way those rights are wielded.